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Holy Name Medical Center

Brings Much-Needed Staff Badging to Haiti Hospital

For over 85 years, Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, N.J. has provided the communities and families of northern New Jersey with compassionate medical and nursing care, continued technological advances, and an
environment of healing tailored to the needs of each patient. Holy Name has evolved into a comprehensive 361-bed acute care medical center.

More than 25 years ago, a Holy Name physician, Dr. David Butler, traveled to Haiti to assist at Hôpital Sacré Coeur, a hospital that provides desperately needed healthcare services in the Milot region. Since then, Holy Name physicians, nurses and allied health staff have traveled to the hospital frequently, and Holy Name now provides primary management for Hôpital Sacré Coeur.

The Story

THE CHALLENGE

Hôpital Sacré Coeur is one of the area’s few reliable healthcare resources, serving 225,000 people in Milot and the northern region of Haiti. Like most of Haiti, the facility and technology trail those in other countries.

Until recently, Hôpital Sacré Coeur lacked ID badges for its staff or the many volunteers that visit each year from all over the world. To enhance security, and support future initiatives such as electronic time and attendance, the hospital needed to implement an ID badging solution. When Holy Name looked at options on the market, it found few that would work with its IBM i (iSeries) server based in their facilities in New Jersey.

“IBM i does not speak Windows or Mac OS; it has its own language,” said Michael Skvarenina, Chief Information Officer at Holy Name. “We needed middleware to connect our server to a badge printer but still have all the formatting and controls and be able to print remotely to a badge printer In Haiti.”

THE SOLUTION

Holy Name has long used Zebra printers for labels and patient wristbands in New Jersey. When evaluating card printers for Haiti, the company again turned to Zebra for a badging solution.

Zebra has a nice XML-based toolkit and ID badge software to print from our IBM i server easily. It’s very simple and allows us to communicate without using any special driver. We also have a longstanding experience with Zebra being easy to use and work with.

Michael Skvarenina, Chief Information OfficerHoly Name

Template-based printing enables organizations with IBM i to avoid having to create work-arounds or write custom code, and allows users to integrate card printing into any network-accessible application by separating out the template from the variable data. By sending just variable data to PrintManager via XML text files, users can integrate network card printing without the need for SDK integration or native host printer drivers.

To get up and running, Holy Name installed the software, connected it to the server and created the badge template – all in less than one week. “From demo to deployment, Zebra was there supporting us to ensure it all went smoothly,” Skvarenina said.

Using Zebra CardStudio™ Template Designer edition, Holy Name configured the two-sided badges to include hospital name, logo, color photo, and employee name, ID and title. Holy Name also color codes badges based on type of role, such as clinician, security or administration.

“I’m not much of a graphic designer, but it was fairly easy to customize our cards,” said Hugo Cantor, developer at Holy Name.

Holy Name chose to use proximity cards for door access control for the security aspects; they can’t be easily photocopied or replicated. Prox card readers are also a more affordable option for the Haiti location.

Currently, Holy Name prints all badges for Haiti in its New Jersey location. However, with network-based printing, the hospital plans to take a ZXP Series 7 printer to Hôpital Sacré Coeur but continue initiating printing remotely from New Jersey over a secure network connection.

The hospital estimates it will print about 100 cards each month.

RESULTS

The ZXP Series 7 and Zebra Printware give Holy Name a simple solution for badge printing for all resident staff and volunteers at Hôpital Sacré Coeur. With the template configured, each badge prints at the push of a button.

Hôpital Sacré Coeur now has much-needed security, with badges providing access control and clearly showing patients, staff and volunteers who is authorized to treat patients.

“Before, lots of people just walked through because there were no ID cards,” Skvarenina said. “From a security standpoint, we now know who’s supposed to be there or not. Badge access control also helps us prevent theft in our pharmacy.”

Next, Holy Name plans to use badges to track time and attendance for Hôpital Sacré Coeur staff for more accurate and efficient payrolling. The hospital will also deploy several Zebra Z2824 printers for patient wristbands in Haiti, and is looking into ID cards for patients for faster identification for hospital staff.

“We’re looking to technology to help us save very valuable time and resources in Haiti,” Skvarenina said.